Seven Groomsmen from Hell

  Seven Groomsmen from Hell

  A Reverse Harem Romance (Love by Numbers Book 6)

  Nicole Casey

  Copyright © 2020 by Nicole Casey. All Rights Reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronically, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the proper written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  Love by Numbers

  - A Reverse Harem Romance Series

  2 Billionaires in Vegas

  3 Bosses’ Assistant

  4 Ranchers’ Bride

  5 Mafia Captors’ Virgin

  6 Single Dads’ Nanny

  7 Groomsmen from Hell

  …to be continued

  Book Description

  He was awful to me in high school, but now he and his six friends want me?

  The moment I saw him, all I could think about was the way he used to torture me.

  6 foot 2, sky blue eyes, dark buzzcut hair; that’s what my personal demon looked like.

  He was my greatest fear, and when I had nightmares, he was the star.

  10 years later, and now when he slips into my dreams, he brings six other men along.

  They look at me with lust in their eyes and a glint of hope for something more.

  Seven circles of hell; each of these men wore one like a fresh pressed suit and tie.

  They’re interfering with my job and with my life.

  I’ve always been resilient, but every woman has her limit.

  How can I do my job, when all I want to do is them?

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Khloe

  2. Luke

  3. Christian

  4. Khloe

  5. Mason

  6. Cody

  7. Luke

  8. Khloe

  9. David

  10. Khloe

  11. Cody

  12. Khloe

  13. Luke

  14. Brett

  15. Khloe

  16. Cody

  17. Mason

  18. Christian

  19. Cody

  20. Luke

  21. Brett

  22. Khloe

  23. Cody

  24. Christian

  25. Khloe

  26. Brett

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Get this for 99 Cents

  Also By Nicole Casey

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Khloe

  I wiped the wisps of sweat glued hair out of my face, and packed my water bottle and towel into my gym bag. I’d just finished another of ‘Lady Kate’s Killer Pilates’ sessions and was near to collapsing. Dinner and a shower, and I’d be lucky to make it to the bed before passing out.

  “Okay,” I said to Anna, who was the demon who convinced me to join her in the sessions, “what’s the big news?”

  Anna, a cute, tall and slender woman with black hair in a pixie cut and dark blue eyes, reached into her bag for a moment before whipping around brandishing a black, velvet box. She tipped the lid aside revealing a stunning, pink-gold, diamond ring. By my estimate, it was twenty grand at least, but Kent was a world-renowned football player, so it was probably chump change for him.

  “He did it! He proposed!” she yelped.

  I let out a little screech. I wasn’t a chipper, cheer-for-everything kind of girl, but Anna had been head over heels for Kent for a while, and I was excited he finally popped the question.

  “Congratulations!” I grinned from ear to ear as Anna pulled the ring from the box and slid it on her finger. I raised an eyebrow. “So… who’s the wedding planner? I happen to know someone?”

  Anna put the box back in her gym bag and pulled the strap over her shoulder. “Oh, I went with someone from my job who does it on the side.” I frowned and then Anna let out a huge, barking laugh. “I’m joking. Obviously, I want you to plan my wedding, you dope. And none of this ‘family discount’ nonsense either. It’s your business and I support you, so I’m paying full price.”

  The notion made me fuzzy inside. “Thanks. When can I get started?”

  “I was hoping you’d ask that.” Anna reached back into her bag and when she came back that time, she had a huge, dark blue binder. “Here are a few things to get you started.”

  I took the binder, feeling its intense weight threaten to make me drop it. “A few?”

  Anna laughed. “Well, I’ve been planning for this day pretty much ever since Kent asked me on our first date.”

  I flipped open the lid to the binder and looked at the front page titled, ‘NECESSARIES.’

  One Bride (Me)

  One Groom (Kent)

  One Bridesmaid

  Seven Groomsmen

  Destination:Puerto Rico

  Date: Christmas Day

  “Destination wedding, huh?” I said, “And who’s the one bridesmaid?”

  Anna smiled at me. “Who else, but you?” she said sweetly. “That is, if you accept? Will you be my maid-of-honor?”

  I couldn’t believe it. I knew Anna was without siblings, but I never thought I was who she would want to hold such a prestigious title on her special day. “Of course!” I threw my arms around her in a huge hug, nearly killing us both with the binder. I pulled away and tucked it in my gym bag as we headed for the door of the studio. “So, who are the groomsmen?”

  Anna’s mouth curved down into one of strained ‘uh oh.’ “So, here’s the thing. Despite my begging, Kent has insisted on bringing his seven best friends as his groomsmen. Five of them he plays football with, his accountant, and a doctor he knows from his head injury.”

  “So, what’s wrong with that?” I asked.

  “They’re a bit of a handful. Let me be more specific, they’re a handful when they’re on their best behavior, when they’re at their worst…” Anna’s voice trailed off like she didn’t want to say more for fear of scaring me off.

  “They’re men. Throw ‘em some beers and a porn magazine and you have them eating out of the palm of your hand,” I joked.

  Anna shook her head. “Not these men.”

  “What’s so wrong with them?” I said.

  Anna tilted her head in thought for a moment as we walked down the street in the brisk, Texas air. “So, you know all those rumors that Christian Bale freaked out on some extras on set and is secretly a huge jerk in real life?”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “And how Ken Jeong seems like a dufus, but he’s actually a doctor and super smart?” she continued, and I nodded. “And how drop dead gorgeous Jason Mamoa is?”

  I imagined Aquaman’s bulging muscles and tribal tattoos. “Oh, he really is.”

  “That,” Anna said. “That’s what’s wrong with them.”

  “Which part?” I asked.

  “All of it,” Anna responded.

  I shook my head with a chuckle. No man was truly like that. “I’m not worried about it. You just worried about getting married. I’ll handle the men.”

  1

  Khloe

  I could still clearly remember the moment it all went wrong; the day Anna asked me to be her wedding planner. That memory faded from my mind like a bad dream. It was now just a week and a half until the wedding, and in that time I’d learned that these seven men were even worse than she describe
d.

  “Lord, give me strength,” I said aloud to myself as I stood at the entrance to a popular restaurant in downtown Austin.

  Inside the restaurant were eight men, only one of whom didn’t make me feel like jumping head first into a wood chipper. Kent was the fiancé of my best friend, Anna, and he wasn’t a terrible guy, though I could certainly judge him for the company he kept. The other seven men inside the restaurant were his groomsmen. Seven loud, annoying, yet undeniably sexy assholes with a penchant for making me consider becoming a serial killer. There was something about them; they were each like fingernails on a chalkboard in their own, annoying way, but they also could have me hot and bothered inside of five minutes. It was infuriating. Why did seven such beautiful men on the outside have to be horrendous brutes on the inside?

  I took a deep breath as I looked myself over in the reflection of the restaurant windows. I thought I looked okay. I was a thicker girl, with full thighs, a pert peach ass, and a DD rack. In my youth I considered myself ‘chubby,’ daresay even ‘the fat girl,’ but as I got older, I learned that men preferred having a little more meat on the bones. I worked hard to keep my stomach relatively toned, but made no attempts to be some skinny mini like a magazine barbie doll. I was full figured, and I liked it. Still, the groomsmen—the best man in particular—knew how to press my buttons, and my size was the biggest one. So I wore a long sleeve t-shirt, jean capri pants with design-intended rips, and had my brown hair falling in waves on either side of my face, to mask some of the chub to my cheeks.

  I pushed open the door and made my way in, already preparing myself for the worst. They were all staring back at me, waiting to pounce the second they saw me.

  There was David Jackson; all the guys called him ‘Doc.’ From what I’d gathered in the time I’d spent with them, there was no basis for the nickname, they called him it just to mess with him. That said, he was the health conscious one of the group, and had a physical education degree to boot. He was a tall, solid-build running back with dark, short cut hair, caramel skin, dark brown eyes, and a clean canvas; no facial hair, no tatts. He was as good-looking as they came for a blemish-free guy. I preferred the rugged look, but I certainly wouldn’t kick Doc outta bed. Well, I would, but it wouldn’t be because of his looks, it would be because of his near-incessant tendency to try and convert everyone around him to veganism, complete with judgmental looks at every bit of an egg or burger.

  Next to him was Brett Townsend. Dark chocolate skin was a perfect frame for his dimpled smile, short beard, and light hazel eyes. His hair fell in short, wild dreads across his head, ticking the poorly retouched tattoo of a former lover’s name scrawled across his neck. Of the groomsmen, he was probably the friendliest, but he was as stubborn as a mule. He refused to be one-upped, which meant if all the guys were participating in making my life miserable, he was falling in line if not trying to top the troop.

  Christian Hill was the linebacker of the same team Brett and David played for, the Hellraisers. He was a thrill seeker who took great joy in anything that made his heart beat a little faster. He had tan skin, bright green eyes, feathery, dirty blond hair and a smile that could kill. He was incredibly tall, and liked to use that height to tower over me and make me feel small, though I couldn’t keep myself from imagining myself all over his massive size.

  Mason Lee was called “Old Man”, though he was only a year or two older than the rest of them. His nickname was given to him more because of his appearance than his age, and because he’d already been married and divorced once. He was tall too, but was a stockier build and had sea blue eyes that were hypnotic if stared into for too long. He was a ‘friendly chat you up until you can’t escape’ kind of guy, with ruddy cheeks and undeniable charm. He was ‘dad’ until he was ‘daddy.’

  Dr. Cody Williams was not a football player like Kent and the others, but was actually a doctor. I didn’t actually have any idea why one of Kent’s groomsmen was a doctor as opposed to more of his football buddies. In the beginning when I was trying a ‘kill ‘em with kindness’ approach to relating to the men, I tried to ask, but Dr. Cody had a terrible habit of making me feel like an idiot. I stopped trying to speak with him after the third time he used pandering sarcasm to explain something to me. Unfortunately for me, he was one of the best looking of the group, standing at just under 6 feet, with a lithe but muscular body. He had a square face and green eyes with short, dark russet hair, and almond skin. He was a stone cold stunner. If he hadn’t gone for medical school, he could have been a model, not that I would ever tell him that.

  Of the guys, Bram Russel was my favorite, in the least of all evils kind of way. He wasn’t a complete ass, and was smart, so he didn’t often get sucked into the ribbing and teasing most of the guys hit me with. That said, he was impatient and didn’t often stick around for antics. I couldn’t count the number of times I looked up needing Bram for one thing or another and he’d just left. He had cocoa skin, a little bit of height too him, and boasted impressive muscles for an accountant. With his dark gray eyes, near buzz-cut black hair, and fresh, tattoo free skin, he had a mysterious, bad boy kind of look.

  Last, but certainly not least, Luke fucking Heath. The resident ass-in-chief. If the groomsmen were an army of jerks, Luke was their idiot general. He was Kent’s best friend and was the quarterback of the football team aka the star and he wanted everyone to know it. I went to high school with him and he was just as much of a punk back then. He had made it his personal mission to make my every waking second a hell on earth, finding creative, annoying ways to destroy everything he touched. Sure, he was sexy, if you could get past the incessant irritation. He was tall, had naturally tan skin, crystal blue eyes, and the biceps of a guy on the cover of a romance novel. He had dark hair in a buzz cut and a barely there goatee, and had a tribal tattoo sleeve covering his left arm. If I could expel any of these men from the earth, he’d be the one. I could navigate Mason’s manipulative conversations, Dr. Cody’s ‘I’m smarter than you’ snobbery, or David’s ‘holier than thou’ health shtick, but if I never had to see Luke again, it would be too soon.

  I stared at them all, trying to convince myself that I’d made it this far, it made no sense to go back now. “‘I’ll handle the men,’” I mocked myself. “Boy was I wrong.”

  2

  Luke

  I was surrounded by my closest friends at a steakhouse restaurant in downtown Austin, but their absent chatters could not be further from my mind. I had my eyes trained on the doorway. On the other side, forming a tantalizing silhouette through the frosted glass, was Kent and Anna’s wedding planner, Khloe. That’s who she was currently, but I’d known her since high school. I could say that back then wasn’t different from now. I still loved to tease her the second she arrived anywhere around me, but unlike back then, when I did it now, it was because I couldn’t control how attracted to her I was. She’d been their wedding planner for months, and with just weeks to go until the wedding, I could damn near say I could take the world record for longest, unsatiated hard-on.

  The door opened, Khloe finally walked in, and I didn’t even wait a second to respond. I cupped my hands on either side of my mouth and shouted, “Shut up, guys, our personal slave driver is here.”

  “Really dude?” Kent said, with genuine irritation in his voice. “Slave driver? She’s planning my wedding.”

  “Is ‘slave driver’ the best you can do?” Khloe barked, her eyes narrowed at me with contempt. “And here I actually thought I had to be worried today.”

  My eyes lowered as well, but mine were animalistic, and hungry. The only person around for miles who didn’t know I wanted Khloe, was the woman herself. Maybe she was just blind to the obvious, maybe it was the fact that I was hiding my attraction behind playful teasing, but either way, all of the other groomsmen and even Kent were in the know. The groom-to-be had already threatened me on more than one occasion to completely dismember me if I didn’t keep my hands to myself. I promised him I would be good
, but I may have had my fingers crossed behind my back when I did.

  I leaned towards her. “Would you prefer ‘Madame Sade’ instead?”

  “Luke,” Kent hissed a warning. “Be nice. Quit giving her shit. You already ran her through the ringer trying on every suit but yours at the fitting last week.”

  I grinned remembering myself trying to squeeze myself into Brett’s too small suit. I purposely did so outside of the dressing room to flash my package towards Khloe as best I could. She had to be at the fitting because all of the arrangements were in her name, and I was hellbent on making that process as much of a headache for her as I could.

  “What do you want from me?” I retorted. “They all looked like the same monkey suit to me.”

  “Well after next week, you’ll never have to wear that monkey suit again,” Kent snipped back.

  “I’ll be blissed to burn that piece of trash suit the second I step out of it,” I said, then I turned and looked at Khloe. “And don’t act like you didn’t love watching me get undressed. I saw you checking out my junk. If you wanted a closer look, all you had to do was ask.”

  I leaned in even closer, but bringing my face any closer to Khloe was probably a huge mistake. Her sweet, flowery perfume wafted into my nose and coaxed me towards her like a bewitching finger steaming off of a cartoon pie. It was apparent in the slight pout to Khloe’s lips and puff of her cheeks, that she believed I was just living up to my inner-asshole by messing with her whenever I got the chance, when really what I was doing was likened to seasoning a dish before eating it. I wanted her, probably more than I’d ever wanted anything. I wanted to slam her on a bed and strip her clothes off until those beautiful curves were completely exposed to me. I wanted to see her lips parted just so, moaning as I drove my dick into her until I was cumming all over those huge, full breasts.